


Champagne and Streamers

by brilliantdream (Reiyezerwyre)



Series: Seasonal Romance [2]
Category: Visual Kei - Fandom, the GazettE
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 14:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10664538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reiyezerwyre/pseuds/brilliantdream
Summary: For a moment Yutaka wondered why the gloves looked so familiar until it hit him.They used to be his.





	Champagne and Streamers

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Livejournal in 2010.

With a frustrated sigh to himself Yutaka took up his place at the end of line to the register. Impatiently he tapped his foot on the linoleum in an effort to vent his agitation. The soft click of his shoe sole on the waxed surface drowned out by the chatter and excitement of the shoppers around him. The rising volume of the noise only added to his grinding mood. He hated post-Christmas sales and would avoid them like the plague if he could, but the cause of his rotten mood - an unwitting colleague - had called to remind him that it was his turn this year to buy the supplies needed for the department’s New Year’s gathering.

It wasn’t a party as he had been reminded. It was a ‘get together for members of the department’. In other words a social mixer for the socially offensive singletons of the department that their married counter-parts felt needed assistance in their efforts to conform to social expectations. Of course Yutaka had never told his colleagues that he'd already been married once and therefore his single status should not be as ‘offensive’ as they thought it to be. But if he told them that then they’d start asking questions he didn’t want to answer.

Shifting the overloaded basket in his hands to the other arm, he shuffled forward the half meter that the line had progressed. Part of him wondered why he had even grudgingly agreed to be present at the event, while another part explained that it was because if he didn’t it would just lead to more uncomfortable questions and sympathy. He didn’t want to be pitied. It would just make him feel more useless: more of a failure and disappointment than he already thought he was.

With a frustrated sigh Yutaka pressed his index and middle finger to the bridge of his nose, forcing the memories of the life he had left behind from his mind. It didn’t do to dwell on things he couldn’t change no matter how much he wished he could rewind his life, to be able to take it back to a time when it didn’t hurt to breathe.

After what seemed like the better part of an hour Yutaka finally made it to the counter. Ignoring the bright smile and overly bubbly greeting of the young woman behind the register, he dropped the basket down in front of her. He didn't care how abrupt the gesture seemed. Lately, he had little patience for empty courtesies than usual.

A combination of Yule tide depression and insomnia brought on by recent events in Yutaka’s life had eaten away at his typically iron grip on the pleasant mask he wore. As a result the last three to four days had seen an increasing edge of irritation to the brunette’s generally passive continence.

Taking no offence at Yutaka’s obvious sour mood the register attendant began running the items through the scanner.

‘Having a party for New Years are you?’ she asked politely in an attempt at small talk, but Yutaka continued to ignore her. One look at the contents of the basket and it would have been obvious to anyone that, like everyone else coming through the store he was buying supplies for a party. The only item that would have struck any observant attendant as odd was the small jar of over the counter sleeping pills tucked under a packet of offensively vibrant streamers.

If the attendant was going to query Yutaka about his purchases then she should have been asking him if he had been having trouble sleeping lately. Of course that would have been rude, even if the fact of the matter was that he had. His unfocused gaze and the slight sag beneath his eyes could attest to that.

What made things worse was that the cause of his recent insomnia was petty. But no matter how much he tried to remind himself that there was no reason to be losing sleep over a stranger, his mind wouldn’t let it go. Clinging desperately to the warmth of the blonde stranger’s generosity like a worn-out teddy bear a part of him kept wondering, where did Akira go?

Where was he now?

Why did he leave the way he did?

Like a scratched record his mind kept playing the same scene over in his head. The awkward embarrassment that curled the edges of Akira’s mouth, softening the corners of his eyes as he thanked Yutaka. The warmth of his side against Yutaka’s while they sat quietly watching the night pass them by. The aroma of ground coffee and cocoa that permeated his uniform... quietly, without a word the young blonde in Yutaka's mind leaned forward, cupping the side of the older man’s face as he gently pressed his lips to Yutaka’s, waiting there briefly before moving back. For a moment everything seemed to just fade into the background, all the noise around Yutaka dulled to a muffled blur as Akira’s thumb softly stroked his cheek.

‘Merry Christmas, Yutaka.’

The low timbre in the young man’s voice echoed in Yutaka’s head as Akira pulled back slowly letting his hand fall naturally from Yutaka’s face, but the older man stopped him, closing his cold fingers around the young man’s hand. The hitch in Akira’s voice was close to deafening as his body tensed and confusion crossed over his face.

Despite the fallible grip with which Yutaka held him, Akira didn’t move.

He just stared.

And so did Yutaka.

A tightening in Yutaka’s chest tugged at the base of his rib cage, egging him forward. Stiffly at first, Yutaka felt his whole upper torso being pulled forward as his neck streched, angling his chin slightly as he moved. Eyes focused on the strip of material that hid the younger man’s nose. He felt Akira close the gap between them –

‘Sir?’ Yutaka blinked the mental image from his mind as the attendant gave him a concerned look.

‘wha – ’

‘all together it's six thousand yen.’

Nodding curtly, Yutaka handed over the money and collected up his bags, not bothering to wait for his receipt. The remnants of his vivid day dream were still clawing at the back of his mind. That was not how the night with Akira had ended. He knew that. The young man had left as quickly as he had come, leaving Yutaka just as confused as when the blonde had first approached him.

Yutaka put it all down to the fact that in a world of six billion or more people there was bound to be some strange ones out there and that living in a city with a population somewhere in the range of ten million just increased his chances of encountering such people. It was a fluke. A strange curveball that life had thrown him and now the ball had passed so it was time for him to continue on with his lonely, monotonous life.

He wouldn’t admit that Akira had been on his mind a lot since that night. He would maintain other things had also been on his mind and that the combination of them all was taking its toll. The fact that Akira’s face was last thing he thought of as the sleeping pills worked their magic was nothing important. Akira had kissed him. A man had kissed him – briefly – for no reason. Something like that didn’t happen all that often in Yutaka's life, so of course it was stuck in his head. Anyone would have such random events burnt into their memory and this was no different.

Nothing else.

~~~~

 

Yutaka wanted to force his head into a meat grinder; a hand cranked one. He was convinced that it couldn’t be any more painful than the torture – his colleagues called it ‘socializing’ – that was being forced onto him. What little patience he had left was slowly being corroded away by the endless line of ‘potentials’ that his co-workers felt compelled to introduce him to.

It didn’t help either that the call he had just angrily hung up on had just sent his mood plummeting through the concrete floor. So in an effort to avoid possibly wrapping his hands around the throat of the next person that had someone they wanted him to meet, Yutaka had slipped away unnoticed out onto the observation deck. For some reason his boss had thought it would be a great idea to hold the New Year’s celebrations atop a mountain so guests could quote ‘watch over the city as the year turned over’.

The man obviously had forgotten that in the middle of winter temperatures outside would be well below minus. But at the moment Yutaka didn’t mind, it meant that he had the observation deck all to himself.

Or so he thought.

‘you look like you could use a hot chocolate.’

Looking up sharply from the bench he was sitting on, Yutaka prepared to tell the stranger to politely ‘fuck off’ because he wasn’t in the mood, but paused just as he was forming the first syllable.

‘Fu– Akira? What are you doing here?’

‘Working.’ With a small jab of his finger the smiling blonde indicated to the dress pants he was wearing and the matching knee-length apron poking out from under his enormous blizzard-proof snow coat. But that was not what made Yutaka want to rub his eyes in disbelief. A net of tangled streamers fell around Akira’s shoulders as though he had decided to walk through the decorations instead of around them and a cheap cardboard party hat was balanced precariously askew on his head. To say the young man looked laughable was an understatement. ‘So how about that hot chocolate?’

‘No I’m fine, thank you.’

‘Com’on, it’s courtesy of your boss’ tab.’ Akira stepped forward gingerly as he hugged himself tightly against the wind, crushing some of the paper streamers to his chest. ‘If you want I’ll put in an extra two marshmallows’

‘No really, I-‘

‘Ok,' Akira cuts him off with a raised hand. 'Spill it.’

With all the confidence of the first time they had met, the blonde sat himself down beside Yutaka. His face set in a serious expression of concern that didn’t match the offensively bright fluorescent coloured decorations that were trying to strangle him.

‘What?’

‘Com’on tell me, what’s bothering you?’

‘Nothing’s –’ a slight quirk of Akira’s eyebrow made it clear that the younger man had no intention of leaving Yutaka alone till he told the truth.

With an exasperated sigh, Yutaka looked out to the railing in some subconscious hope for escape.

‘I guess you don’t know me well enough to tell me about your private life.’

Yutaka watched the young man from the corner of his eye and saw the dejected look on Akira’s face as he pulled away, turning to look at the sky for a moment as he sat back on the bench.

‘I just got off the phone with my ex-wife.’ He started, unsure just how much he was willing to tell the young man. ‘She called to tell me to not bother coming to visit for New Years, she and Takanori are taking Akina to Nara for the next two weeks. Apparently they decided to spend New Years with his family this year, so Akina can meet her new grandparents.’

‘You’re upset that she is keeping your daughter from you.’ Akira comments perceptively.

‘I guess that is the simple way of putting it.’ Yutaka forced a light-hearted laugh as he hunched over, elbows resting on his knees. ‘She’s cutting me out of the picture, Akira. And the worst thing is that Akina will never know the difference.’

Lightly placing his hand on the older man’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort Akira leaned forward onto his own knee as he looked out over the glittering nightscape of the city below them.

‘You’d be surprised what children can sense. Trust me she will know the difference, maybe not right now, but one day when she’s older Akina will know.’

‘How would you know?’

‘A little thing called firsthand experience.’ Akira answered in what was becoming his trademark cryptic way.

‘I-I don’t know what to say.’

‘You don’t have to say anything. I don’t want anyone’s sympathy,’ the blonde gave Yutaka a small smile. ‘least of all yours.’

‘That’s good,’ Yutaka turned away awkwardly, briefly unsettled by the young man's smile. ‘Because I am not giving it to you.’

There was a short bark of laughter from the blonde before Akira took his hand away from the Yutaka's shoulder placing it back in his own lap.

‘What’s your New Year’s resolution, Yutaka?’

‘What?’ The sudden change of subject caught Yutaka of guard.

‘I figure if I can’t get you a hot chocolate I might as well try something else’ Akira clarified.

‘So you want grant my New Year’s resolution? Isn’t that a bit, I don’t know, ambitious.’

‘I said I’d try, I said nothing about succeeding.’

Yutaka couldn’t help but laugh. He did have a point.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be working, not promising the impossible?’

‘I was knocking off when I spotted you.’

‘You do that a lot don’t you?’

‘Hello pot, my name's kettle.' Akira quipped, quickly explaining himself when it was clear Yutaka wasn't following. 'I’ve never see you doing anything other than looking miserable on a bench. I’d bet money that you have a bench in your lounge room instead of a couch.’ The tone of amiable jest was obvious in the blonde’s voice as he joked at the Yutaka’s expense. ‘Com’on tell me what’s your New Year’s resolution’

‘I don’t know’ Yutaka sighed. ‘I’ve never really ever had one’.

‘Don’t lie, everyone has something they want.’

‘Well then, maybe to have my daughter back in my arms, to be happy, I guess.'

‘to be happy, huh?’ Akira mused thoughtfully. ‘You know that is the most common reason for most people’s New Year’s resolutions. They think that if they can quit smoking, lose five kilos or get a new job that they will be happier. But they never take the initiative. They always wait 'til the turn of the year to start making changes for the better. I don’t get it.’

‘Maybe because they believe that a new year means a new life. There is something symbolic in starting something with the New Year.’

‘Then why have you never made a new start?’

‘I have.’

‘Doesn’t look like that to me. It looks like you’ve just run away. How many years have you spent doing nothing to work towards making yourself happy again? You deserve better.’

‘Aki-‘

‘There is no excuse for wallowing in your own self pity, Yutaka.’ Akira turned back to Yutaka suddenly. ‘Your wife left you, yes that’s sad, but that doesn’t mean that something else won’t make you happy too; something your misery blinded eyes can’t see.’

Yutaka watched confused as the blonde leaned over and placed his hand gingerly on Yutaka’s cheek, angling his head slightly as he drew closer. He could feel Akira’s breath as it played over his face, feel the warmth as the young man gently rested his forehead against Yutaka’s, his eyes closed as he stroked the older man’s face.

‘can you see me?’ he whispered.

Yutaka breathing hitched as the meaning behind the Akira’s question hit him. His heart beat frantically against his ribs, the warmth of the younger man’s palm against his skin making him giddy.

‘I-I …wh— ’ he stammered nervously, overwhelmed by how close the blonde was. His body wasn’t as close to Yutaka's as it had been on Christmas Eve, when the younger man had snuggled against Yutaka's side for warmth – at least that’s what Yutaka had assumed was the reason behind the younger man resting on his shoulder back then, but now he wasn’t sure – this was a much more intimate closeness. Yutaka had no idea how to take it.

What was Akira asking of him?

‘Won’t you smile for me again? Like you did back then and let me make you happy.’ Akira whispered gently. In the background Yutaka could hear the commotion of the party goers as their excitement grew. The countdown was just moments away and the organisers were gathering everyone together, but no one bothered to check the observation deck for stragglers.

Unsettled by Yutaka’s silence Akira pulled back to look the man in the eye. ‘Yuta—’ but before he was even an inch away from Yutaka’s face a hand caught the young man by the back of the head and pulled him back down.

_Ten!_

A chorus of drunken and slurred voices rang out from inside as the countdown began. But neither Akira, nor Yutaka were listening. Both were too immersed in each other to care about anything else. Tangling his fingers in the hair at the base of the blonde’s neck Yutaka let his mind go blank as he sucked Akira’s bottom lip between his own, listening to the short excited puffs of the younger man’s breath as he followed Yutaka’s lead.

_Nine!_

Nipping playfully at the older man’s lips Akira challenged Yutaka's every move, opening his mouth to the older man’s tongue for a moment before wrestling to slip his own past the brunette’s lips. Tracing the heel of his hand across the other’s cheek bone he pulled Yutaka closer with a nudge of his fingers on the back of the older man’s neck.

_Eight!_

Carding his hands through the styled mess of Akira's hair - knocking the party hat off carelessly - Yutaka tugged lightly causing the younger man to moan softly against his tongue. The vibrations sending a shiver down his spine as the blonde’s breathy exhales splayed across his face.

_Seven!_

Yutaka could feel a moan of his own bubbling in the base of his throat, as Akira’s arm wove around his neck; finger tips tracing down the ridge of his spine, just below his collar. But he forced it down out of some strange sense of something that he couldn’t put his finger on. All he knew was that it wanted him to keep a lid on his vocalisations. Maybe it was the small awareness that they were in public, the knowledge that anyone of his co-workers could walk out onto the observation deck and ‘observe’ them. Or maybe it was the uncertainty of what exactly it was that he was doing with the young man.

_Six!_

In an effort to ease the uncomfortable twist in his back Akira shifted around, swinging his leg over Yutaka’s knees until he could straddle the older man’s lap; whimpering quietly at the increase in body contact as the paper streamers crumpled between them, grating against the synthetic fibres of the brunette’s winter coat.

_Five!_

Desperate to maintain his battle with the young man’s tongue Yutaka moved his head with the blonde as Akira climbed over him, angling his head back as the eager young man tangled himself deeper in Yutaka’s mouth.

_Four!_

The sudden weight of Akira on his lap shocked Yutaka out of his trance. He pulled away suddenly, resisting the coaxing whine that slipped from the blonde’s lips as he tried to follow Yutaka’s retreating mouth.

_Three!_

Panting heavily Yutaka held Akira back as he tried to shake off the haze of adrenaline and aroma of coffee from the young man’s clothes that clouded his mind. His eyes stared blankly down between their bodies as he angled his face away from the blonde’s attempts to renew their kiss.

_Two!_

Could he do this?

Could he let go of his toxic self pity and accept the young man in his lap?

Could he…

‘Yutaka?’

_One!_

Yutaka sighed as his eyes feel over the crotch of Akira’s black dress pants, marveling at how well they managed to hide what he'd felt brush against his lower stomach just a moment ago. Despite the cold air around them -that turned their breath to smoke before their eyes - Yutaka could feel the heat radiating from Akira’s body and the warmth of the young man’s gloved hands as they slipped down his chest.

It made him want to smile.

For a moment Yutaka wondered why the gloves looked so familiar until it hit him.

They used to be his.

_Zero!_

Looking back up at the confused blonde’s concerned face Yutaka smiled. A genuine smile like the one the young man wanted to see again. ‘I can see you, Akira.’

_Happy New Year!_


End file.
